Shaken with the rushing sense of his friend's danger, Peter started wildly for the door. But in that fraction of a second, the lamp on the center table was blown suddenly out and he found himself in inky darkness. At the same moment something thrust itself dexterously between his moving legs and he fell heavily to the floor. Falling he struck out blindly, and his whirling fist collided with something warm and soft. The next instant he was up and groping madly for the door, his sense of direction all gone from him. But the author lay where he had fallen, quite still, and, for the moment, afraid no longer. The moment's gain, however, was all that Stanhope needed, though it was no more. In the dark hall where a single candle burned, Varney had met Henry. The instant before, a man's head and shoulders had protruded suddenly through the broken-in parlor window, and Henry, waiting patiently in the shadow of the wall had flatted him to the floor with a heavy chair, which broke in his hands. Then he heard swift footsteps in the hall, and divining what had happened, bounded out. "Stand clear, man!" cried Varney loudly. "I'm going out." A prolonged shouting indicated that the promise was heard with approval outside. But not so with Henry, who closed in on him fiercely, crying: "Not hon your bloomin' life, you don't--harskin' your pardon, sir!" Varney, however, was a thing of nerves and passion now, all energy and muscle and concentrated purpose. He shook the man off like a rat, and the next moment burst open the front door. All this had happened far more quickly than it can be set down. Five minutes had hardly passed since Henry's first challenge had rung from the upstairs window. This would have been ample time to carry the house by storm, front and back, had the invaders had the leadership and wit; but these things they lacked. They were still massed on the front porch, pell-mell, in a turbulent group, ramping, raging, thirsty for action, but as yet ineffective; though one of them had at that moment set a match to a torch of newspapers and kindling wood. Delay had loosed the hunter's instinct in the half-drunken band: it broke into flame at sight of the quarry. Varney had scarcely shown himself in the half-opened door when some one struck him a savage blow on the chin that sent him reeling backwards. He had come out to them with no plan, no sense of hostility, and only because, in his disturbed mood, he despised Stanhope so utterly that he would take no protection from him, or give him any share in his own troubles. But at that blow, a demon sprang to life in him which knew no law but an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. His left arm shot out like a piston at the dim flushed face before him, and the face bobbed downward out of sight.